EVE COULDN’T HAVE moved out of the studio doorway if the building had been burning down.
She watched as Mitch closed his laptop and put it in his briefcase. He nodded his thanks to the technician in the control booth, and the video screen went dark.
And then he turned toward the door and saw her.
Their gazes collided, and it seemed to Eve that a silent explosion happened right there in the middle of the room. How could she bear the pain in that gaze? And how could she put into words this maelstrom of emotion whirling inside her as she realized what he’d just done?
He’d thrown away his career for her.
The enormity of it staggered her. Humbled her. And showed her the depth of her own feelings for him. Instead of reaching out hesitantly, throwing out hints and signals the way she’d been doing, he’d gambled his whole future in one grand act for her sake. Could she really have underestimated him that much? How blind could she be?
“How long have you been standing there?”
Eve leaned on the door and the On Air light went out as the technician exited the back of the booth and moved on to his next task. They were alone—and the studio was soundproof.
“A few minutes. I slipped in when you were running the financials.”
“So you heard Nelson Berg.”
“And I heard you. Oh, Mitch, you don’t have to do this.” Her voice trembled, and she swallowed.
“What else could I have done? They had me between a rock and a hard place. Either way, I would lose—because I know damn well you aren’t going to New York. Or am I wrong?”
Why was he still standing there behind the desk? Why wasn’t he pulling her into his arms? “No, you aren’t wrong. In fact, you’re amazingly right.” Maybe he only had one grand gesture in him. Maybe it was up to her to take this the rest of the way. Eve gathered her courage and circled the desk.
“Right for the show, and right for me,” she said softly. “When I heard you say that, I—”
“Eve, ten minutes,” Cole said in her ear. “Guest’s in the green room waiting for you.”
Ten minutes that could change her life.
She reached out to lay a hand on Mitch’s sleeve, but he picked up his briefcase instead. “Mitch, don’t go. I want to talk to you, but I just got my ten-minute call.”
“I’m unemployed. I have all the time in the world.”
His voice was hollow. What did he expect from her? She had to say something, quick.
“I appreciate that you’d do such a thing for my sake. I know what it must have cost you. And I want you to know that it—it just makes me love you all the more.”
“What?”
“I mean it. But I’ve got to go. Please don’t leave. Meet me in my office after the show. Promise.”
What did that look in his eyes mean? Pain, wonder, confusion. Oh God, why did this have to happen seven minutes before showtime? Why did he look like that?
If it were up to her, she’d stay right here in this studio and show him exactly what she meant—preferably horizontally on the news desk. But the two hundred and fifty people in Studio One would probably stage a riot.
Briefcase nothwithstanding, she grabbed him by his lapels and planted a kiss on his mouth as full of promise as she could make it. “In my office,” she repeated, and ran.
With no time to process what had just happened, she thought she’d make a complete hash of the show, but instead, she found herself drawn right into the topic: the chemistry of love. Nicole had produced a researcher from the local university, and the man was only too happy to explain his life’s work to her. And in view of the last half hour, it was illuminating.
“It’s a well-known fact that job loss is one of the greatest contributors to male depression,” the guy said. “But what we’ve discovered is that rejection—which is what losing a job really is, right?—causes the production of testosterone in a man’s body to drop. That’s what leads to depression, withdrawal and loss of self-esteem.”
“So what can he do to come out of it?” Eve leaned in to ask. Was this a sign from heaven, or what? Bless Nicole. She was getting a raise for this.
“Well, he can go down to the gym and shoot some baskets,” the researcher said, “or he can make love to his wife.”
“Hear that, ladies?” Eve asked the audience. “If any of you have unemployed partners out there, your duty to his testosterone is clear.”
The audience cracked up, and she finished with her monologue, feeling as though a lightbulb had gone off in her head. She couldn’t do anything about Mitch’s decision to end it with CWB, but by God, she could help him through what had to be the most stressful afternoon of his life.
Boy, could she help. He’d already said he had plans for her desk, hadn’t he?
She sprinted up the stairs and arrived in her office breathing fast with anticipation. Would he be there? He had to be. He couldn’t have gone off to his cave at a moment like this, not when she had the cure for what ailed him—
“Eve?”
He turned from the window when she burst in. “Oh, thank God. I was convinced you’d be on that plane.”
“I should be. I need to start networking. Putting out feelers. Talking to people. You know the drill.”
He sounded so distant. But she wouldn’t let him get away with it. Not with your testosterone levels circling the drain. Have I got a cure for you. The marvels of modern—and very ancient—chemistry.
“I have a better idea.” She wrapped her arms around him and pressed up against his back. “Seems to me you made some rash promises about my desk. Want me to lock the door?”
He chuckled and turned, and his arms went around her. This was more like it. “Believe me when I say I’d like nothing better—if I can take a rain check. You understand, don’t you? I’m shell-shocked right now. My brain is zooming at top speed—only it’s going in circles.”
“Mine is, too,” she said against the soft wool of his suit jacket. “But you’re in the middle. I meant what I said down there in the studio, Mitch. About—” Do it. Dive right in, like he did. “—about loving you. I want to make sure that, at least, is clear between us.”
He drew back to look into her eyes. “How can you love an unemployed failure? A woman like you—beautiful, the one everyone wants? The self-made woman who pulled herself up from tragedy to be a celebrity? Trust me, Eve, you have a whole world of choices out there. You don’t need to settle for what’s at hand.”
Loss of self-esteem. She was going to have to invite that researcher back. The man was a gold mine.
“You’ve been reading too many headlines. A woman would be crazy not to grab a guy who would sacrifice himself and his career to protect her happiness. And believe me, I ain’t crazy.”
Gently, he set her away from him, and a chill prickled over her skin. Withdrawal.
“I need some time alone. We both do. I think it would be best if—”
A muffled sound from behind her closed office door made them both turn. “No! I absolutely forbid it,” Dylan said outside.
“She’s got to know,” a female voice said. “Better I tell her than she gets blindsided in the hall or worse, during town hall tomorrow.”
“Girl, you ain’t goin’ in there and showin’ her that. What kind of a friend are you?”
Whatever it was must be serious if it made Dylan revert to what he called “informal speech.”
“Dylan?” Eve called. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” A torrent of hissed whispering ensued, and something thumped against the wood.
Eve crossed the room and jerked the door open. Nicole practically fell into her office, Dylan right behind. Each of them hung onto a side of a rag-mag that Eve recognized as the Peachtree Free Press.
Nicole gave a final yank and ripped the tabloid out of Dylan’s hands. Flushed with triumph, she glared at him, then turned to Eve.
“Some people might think it’s better to keep you in the dark, but I thought you’d want to see this,” she said.
“What?” Eve took the paper.
And then everything seemed to fall away as time ground to a halt.
TV MILLIONAIRE’S SECRET REVEALED
EVE BEST IS TYCOON’S DAUGHTER
Eve Best, the darling of daytime talk shows, Atlanta’s go-to girl for everything the city wants to know about sex and relationships, has been hiding a relationship of her own. No, not the handsome executive arm candy from CWB recently seen squiring her about town. This relationship goes deeper into the dark secrets of her past.
A recent investigation has revealed that Eve, supposed daughter of the late Gibson Best, who died tragically in a car accident in 1990, is not Gibson’s daughter at all. Rather, she is the illegitimate child of tycoon Roy Best, Gibson’s brother, who married socialite and Atlanta Ballet Theatre director Anne Delancey in 1985.
A close family friend, who declined to be named, has known the ugly truth for years and only recently was prevailed on to bring it to light. “I’m no gossip, mind,” says the source, “but those boys confided in me right up until they went away to college. I’ve kept my mouth closed for nearly thirty years, but that poor girl deserves to know that her father did not die in that crash. Her real father, that is.”
All Atlanta knows that, as a member of the old-money set, Best used her social connections and obligations to pull some golden strings, propelling her from the obscure position of junior weathergirl to that of Atlanta’s most popular TV star. But how far will she go now that it’s known she’s not entitled to the Best name in quite the way she thought?
According to our source, Loreen Calvert Best became pregnant by Roy Best just before he went away to Yale. Gibson went to school, too, but before he left, he married the deserted Loreen in a secret ceremony attended only by our source as witness. When Roy came home, he went into business, trading on the Best name to attain a fortune in the electronics and then the real estate markets. He married Anne Delancey in what was then billed as the Wedding of the Year, and two other children followed immediately.
Repeated calls to Eve Best at CATL-TV have gone unanswered. Roy Best has refused comment.
The investigative staff at Peachtree Free Press challenge Eve Best to come out of hiding and tell her viewers the real story. After all, why should she put the blinding spotlight on the secrets of others on live television when she’s so unwilling to bring her own to the light of day?
Eve looked up, and Dylan flinched. She could only imagine what her face must look like. Nicole reached out a tentative hand and laid it on Eve’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Nobody could be fine after reading something like this.”
Mitch took the paper from her and scanned the article. “It’s a bucket of lies, Eve. They’re just trying to sell more of their lousy rag.”
“You’ve never heard this rumor before?” Nicole asked.
“Never.” But the word rang hollow. Because it would explain that photo. And Adele Pierce—so obviously the paper’s so-called source—who had said Uncle Roy needed to clean up his mess. And Aunt Anne at dinner, behaving so strangely. What had she said? Something about the truth.
“I have to talk to my uncle,” Eve blurted. “Today. This minute.”
“You’re not driving anywhere after a shock like this.” Mitch picked her cropped linen jacket off the back of her chair and handed it to her. “I’ll take you.”
Her phone rang, and Dylan picked it up, waving the two of them toward the door. Then he called, “Eve. There’s a visitor in the lobby for you.”
“Not interested. We’ll go out the back door.”
“Yeah, you are. It’s your uncle.”
Eve stopped dead in the middle of the carpet. “My Uncle Roy? Is downstairs? Now?”
Dylan nodded.
She resisted the urge to ask Dylan why he wasn’t already on his way to fetch him. “Escort him in here, please, Dylan. And find us some brandy or something. Don’t look at me like that—this is a crisis. Raid Dan’s office—I know he’s got liquor in his sideboard.”
Mitch backed toward the door. “I’ll give the two of you some privacy. This is a family matter.”
She grabbed his jacket. “Please don’t. I need you. Please.”
For a moment, she thought she’d lose him—that the shaken self-confidence he’d allowed to swamp him earlier would come back and separate them just when she needed him more than ever before. But then a new expression filled his eyes, and he straightened his shoulders.
“You do?”
“Yes.” She burrowed into his arms and felt like shouting hallelujah as they went around her body, strong and sure. “Now. Later. Forever. Just stay.”
And that’s how her Uncle Roy found them when Dylan ushered him in a moment later. Dylan put a brand-new bottle of Courvoisier and three ceramic coffee mugs from the kitchen on her low table and shut the door behind him.
Roy Best looked as though he didn’t know what to do with himself. He stood uneasily, searching Eve’s face, no doubt for some clue as to her feelings.
She could have helped him out if she’d only known herself what those were. To give herself a moment to find her equilibrium, Eve poured a shot for all of them, then sat next to her uncle on the short couch. Roy was neatly put together in an expensive suit and sober tie, but his face…he looked as though he were in shock.
Maybe he was. Even though Mitch stood behind her, Roy didn’t seem to be aware there was anyone but Eve in the room.
“You must hate me,” he said at last, swirling the brandy in the mug but not sipping it. She supposed they were committing some kind of brandy sin by not drinking it out of snifters, but they had to work with what they were given.
“Of course not,” she assured him softly. “I only saw the paper just now, but ever since I went to Mirabel on the weekend, I’ve seen and heard things that have puzzled me. The paper has one slant that would explain them. I’d love to hear yours, if you want to tell me.”
He gave up on the drink and put it on the table. “That’s just it. It isn’t slanted. Except for the nasty tone of it, the paper has its essentials correct. I’m your biological father.”
Luke, I am your father, she heard James Earl Jones say in her head. You look like Evalyne, Adele said, her voice threading over it. So does my niece. She’s fourteen, her own voice said, adding to the mix. She wasn’t blond, like both Loreen and her da—Gibson. She was a green-eyed brunette. Like Evalyne. Like Roy.
“Do Karen and Emily know?” she rasped, her throat dry. “And Aunt Anne?” She took a gulp of the brandy, and it burned all the way down.
“Anne has always known. Do you think I would keep something like that from her? When you were eleven, and fixing to come out here for Christmas a few weeks before the accident, she wanted us to tell you then. Your mom agreed, but your dad was dead against it.”
“They had a fight in the car,” Eve said, remembering. “They went out somewhere, and even before they left, they were fighting. That was the night they went off the road. Because they were fighting about me.” Her voice dropped as she spiraled down the tunnel of time to a place she thought she’d blocked out. The flashing lights outside the house. Nana running to stop the policeman on the sidewalk. The funeral, with two closed caskets that she to this day had a difficult time believing contained her parents’ bodies. They’d never let her see them. It wasn’t fitting, Nana had insisted.
Maybe not, but she’d never been able to say goodbye, either. Hadn’t been able to control the situation. Hadn’t been able to give vent to the depths of emotion she’d been feeling. Going deep into emotion hurt too much. She couldn’t bear it then.
Things have changed now, haven’t they? Because of Mitch.
“We can’t know that,” Roy said heavily. “Believe me, I’ve had my share of regrets over this. But it seemed kinder to let things go on as they were. The kids think of you as their cousin, not their half sister. That will change now, of course. And I’ll be asking their forgiveness, too.”
“I have close family.” She marveled that she was only now realizing it. “If you want to acknowledge that.”
His face crumpled. “Acknowledge? I’m begging your forgiveness, Eve. For being such a coward. For letting Gibson clean up my mistake. For what it’s worth, he adored your mother, even while Loreen and I were dating. I think he would have done what he did a hundred times rather than let her face those uptight society biddies who would have looked down their noses at her.”
“She loved him, too,” Eve said softly. “It was the right thing to do, their getting married. I had a great childhood. And maybe it prepared me for what I do for a living now.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Anne will be glad, too. She’s been absolutely beside herself, hardly knowing whether to blame me or comfort me. Adele called, you know. That’s why I got here so early. I don’t read that particular paper, so when she told me what that reporter had written, I broke a couple of speed limits getting over here.”
“I have a few things I’d like to say to that woman,” Eve said grimly.
“Don’t be too hard on her. She was absolutely right. She’s been nagging me for thirty years, just the way she used to nag us to brush our teeth and quit talking after she turned out the lights.”
“It was none of her business.”
“Maybe not, but you’d have a hard time telling her that. It’s the way families are around here. My mom—your grandmother—had to go out to work, you know. She couldn’t be home much for us, so Adele stepped in to help. She became a kind of second mother. A confidante, in many ways. Even for Loreen.”
“I’m sure Grandmother did what she had to, to keep body and soul together.” She couldn’t blame a woman for that.
He nodded. “That’s in the past. I’m most concerned about the present. Are you going to be all right?”
Unexpectedly, her throat closed up, and she nodded. “I think so. This is a lot to take in.” She glanced at him through her lashes. “It might be a while before I can call you Dad instead of Uncle Roy.”
Tears trembled at the corners of his eyes. “I’ll do my best to earn that honor,” he said gruffly.
And then he pulled her into his arms.